The OpenVAS vulnerability scanner

Safety Net

Article from Issue 143/2012
Author(s):

The more IT infrastructure complexity increases, the more indispensable vulnerability scanners become. If you are not interested in retaining the consulting services of a professional hacker, you might want to entrust the task of detecting vulnerabilities to a specialized software tool, such as OpenVAS.

The Open Vulnerability Assessment System (OpenVAS) is the most widespread and most professional open source solution for vulnerability assessment. The program is a spin-off from Nessus that dates back to 2005; many experienced admins will still remember Nessus.

Whereas many of today’s well-known open source solutions emerged from commercial projects, Nessus went the opposite way and mutated into a commercially licensed product in 2005 with the completion of version 3.0. After this decision by the project team, led by Nessus inventor Renaud Deraison, the open source community lost one of its most successful projects. Renaud Deraison’s company, Tenable Security, has since focused on offering technical support for Nessus.

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